“Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood.” Daniel Burnham, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893
A Chicago heart beating at a New York pace. DREAMer, Optimist, and Urban Enthusiast. All in on public space, public transit, public libraries, and the public at large.
My passion for urban development is deeply rooted in my lived experience.
Growing up in Chicago, I experienced the physical manifestation of Daniel Burnham’s wise words of wisdom everywhere - the undulating L tracks snaking past my home, the billowing stainless steel of Millennium Park, the Beaux-Arts civic institutions lining Michigan Avenue, and the art deco buildings of the 1920s peeking through the soaring glass skyscrapers of today.
Chicago’s relentlessly aspirational spirit is what drew my parents to uproot our family from Mumbai, India and shuffle us to the Windy City when I was a young child. Amidst the glitz and glamour, we went from one blighted neighborhood to the next, from one under-the-table job to another less-than minimum wage promise of a better life. We lived as undocumented immigrants in the shadows of American society for over two decades; this is when I understood first-hand the complicated ways that inadequate housing, limited transportation options, and environmental risks created structural barriers to upward mobility in some of the world’s wealthiest cities.
The first in my family to go to college, I’ve made it my mission to tackle these inequities head on. I attended Harvard University on a full scholarship and received a BA in Government, Economics, and Visual & Environmental Studies. Whether investing in cutting-edge tools to achieve carbon neutrality in NYC, financing the largest public transit agency in the US, delivering life-saving medicines via drone in Africa, or creating the first open-source database of urban infrastructure in Asia, I am keen to leverage technology to better align the public sector with the needs of the people it serves.
My career spans the public and private sectors, and I’ve collaborated with governments across the globe to design, finance, and implement multi-billion dollar investments in climate-smart infrastructure, affordable housing, and economic development. Having worked at Goldman Sachs, The World Bank, the New York City Mayor's Office, and Zipline, I’m skilled at building relationships with diverse stakeholders, structuring complex financial transactions, operating large-scale projects, and leading public-private partnerships. I am now launching Streetlife Ventures, a venture studio and investment fund that develops and deploys the sustainable hardware of cities.
I’m a strong believer in paying it forward and love being active in my community. I have received the National President’s Volunteer Service Award, serve on The Coaching Fellowship to support young women in social impact careers, advise the Aga Khan Development Network on economic empowerment in the Ismaili Muslim community, volunteer with the Girl Scouts, and am a Coro New York Leadership Fellow. I also founded MPower, a mentorship program for DREAMers that helps immigrant and first-gen students attend top-tier universities.
In my free time I enjoy investing, biking, museum hopping, watching reruns of the West Wing, and getting lost in new cities and new conversations - 60 countries, thousands of people, and still counting on both fronts!
